Each year, at this time, I submit on my entry to winningwriters.com bad poetry contest. Last year, despite composing a wonderful ode to deception, sadly I did not win. Yet, not to be daunted, I am submitting another epic for this year’s competition.

The online competition, I fear, has degenerated to a morass of bad sex poems, ones which now require the excessive use of prurient imagination. Despite that I am soldiering on, hoping that the judges (or judge, rather) will finally come to her sense. Also, I only write “classical” bad poetry, free from obvious crude physical or metaphysical references. Dorothy Terry October 28, 2005

EPHIPANY OF THE ENTUBLAR HEIRS

Hotcakes and syrup and my father a leathery no one can fathom
My father wore his red hat similarly sweating
The band played on and what was that stepped stop for the third?

Note on the muffled piano the thrump of the clavichord futile hoarding
Nothing today but perhaps tomorrow Who knows?
I ask then what meaning the flow and ebb of the missals overhead?

Or ordinary in the event the sower sows all we will be
At last wreathed in garlands who only knee each other in our
Sleeps weeping for forever never arriving lone leavings of murk and

Mash of our futile futures all we ask is
That we may be allowed to bereave
Without speaking in silence inhales exhales embellishing all

I remember when he knowing me on his knee
Spoke seriously of my future then we did not grow or learn
The proper way to stay entubed so we go “a’hoo” and went to rent

Bluegrass and nervy tints so favored by our nether family’s crest
Aflight above the fireplace then but now down the servants’ stair
They wave/ waved their Plumes in mist of draconian breathmintlessness

Our noble sword of favor bent by words bespoke
And lies unsaid reread
In trashy poems like this
Alone in bed.

I often thought that it might be interesting to someday present a writing course based on “The Literature of Fashion.”

Which immediately leads to the examination of culture–especially ours, where fashion rules, and the times or the designers or the individual herself/himself attempts to make a statement. (For what purpose?) Just how this might be explored for the benefit of the class members, just how it might help them become better, more observant writers…well, that would be the teaching challenge. (But I think I know the way.)

With all that in mind for future reference, I have kept a file on this idea for a number of years. Certainly there would be biography to choose from (historical, celebrity, etc.) as well as fiction (novels, short stories), various magazines for study–and possibly poetry. However, given this writer’s need to focus on priorities in the time ahead, I doubt this course will ever materialize. Nevertheless, thanks to this excellent new poem by Dorothy Terry, I will keep the fashion file open and surely include a copy of “Toujours Couture” as prime source material.

Where you, like other royalty of rags
Spent final ignominious days, hanging ‘round

With tattered satin, snagged lace, limp linen
All destined for the shredding bin

Severely stained by dirty, unattended hands.
Therefore, I promise you upon every fraying seam

So lightly sewn by clever fingers which
Rose and fell so hungrily, like bees upon

A willing flower, I here and now
Do promise you eternal salvation from

A dire, bruised and slightly used hell which
Lured proud you, and all your retro ways

To Ophelia and that tiresome reparatory company
A squalled season laid out on splintered, bare barn boards

Instead I offer you and your every snap, zipper,
Bakelite button and bound seam

Salvation forever from the darkness, the stench of
Mothball smell, depressing fumes

Of murky side street Salvation store
Where at last you rested, hanging by a thread.

Therefore, I plan to wear you Wed or Dead
Lying now across my bed

I so admire the way you fell, still
Flirting still with grace and tattered charm

Despite those years of storage pall
No, never, never, never will I fling you away

Well,Not today …

copyright Dorothy Terry September 6, 2007

Dorothy Terry , chronicler of the Fantastical Travels of TSE, is a Chicago area poet. Her poetry has been published in The Thing about Second Chances, Polyphony Press, Chicago; InPrint, Persiflage Press, Chicago, and Zocalo, Oaxaca, Mexico., and InPrint, Newberry Library, Chicago. She was selected as an annual Newberry reader in 2004, representing Brooke Bergan’s workshop.

She also has served on the Editorial Board of a upcoming anthology by Persiflage Press, and is currently completing three books: Snapshots, a book of short form poetry; Under Mt.Alban, poems of Oaxaca, Mexico; and THE LAST TRUMPET – A poetic drama about the Great Flood of Orleans, circa 2005 A.D., including the activities of the Devil Himself as well as the famous Baron.

other Norbert Blei web pages

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Norbert Blei | 1935 – 2013

On the back roads of Door County again

Norbert Blei – 2012

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Norbert Blei – 2012

Photo by Jeffrey Winke

Norbert Blei – 2011

Photo by Sharon Auberle

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